Depression among pregnant women and lactating mothers

Depressive symptoms among women are most often seen between the ages of 20 and 40, the age range when many women become pregnant. 

It is very important for healthcare providers to be aware of the frequency of depression in this population, signs, symptoms and appropriate screening methods, and health risks for the mother and growing fetus, if depression is undetected or untreated.

According to the Head of Department of the Psychiatry Unit of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region, Dr Gordon Donnir, the adverse effects of depression among pregnant women include premature delivery, miscarriages, Intra Uterine growth restrictions giving rise to delivering small birth weight babies, poor baby-mother bonding leading to poor breastfeeding and malnutrition with its attendant problems, among other issues.

Pregnant women

He said depression in pregnant women, referred to as "baby blues", should be screened quickly because it is a "predicative factor for depression in mothers," adding that studies showed that more than seven out of 10 new mothers would experience some form of depression.

He mentioned that depression referred to a mood disorder and added that other effects of depression suffered by mothers include "poor cognitive development or brain development which later in the future affects the child's academic or scholastic performance".

Dr Donnir made the suggestion in an interview with the Daily Graphic during a day's training workshop at Bolgatanga on the Edinburgh Peri-Natal Depression Screening Tool (EPDS) for midwives, community psychiatric nurses, community mental health officers and community health nurses.

It was organised by Basic Needs Ghana with support from the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom and UKAID.

Among other things, the workshop was to equip the participants with the requisite skills using the EPDS tool, which is one of the universally accepted tools recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the American Association of Obstetrician and Gynaecologists.

The EPDS tool is in the form of a cycle which starts with first the screening of the patient, discussion of results or screening score, counselling, discussion of treatment options and referral.

Screening

He has, therefore, stressed the need for a national policy that will incorporate screening for depression among lactating and expectant mothers into the routine antenatal and post-natal care offered at the various health facilities.

This, according to him, is to help detect early signs of depression among expectant mothers, which adversely affects the unborn child and newly born babies in several ways.

He asked mental health personnel to closely watch depressed mothers who have suicide tendencies and were in the process of recovering from that condition, because it was when such patients were recovering that they carried out their suicide tendencies.

He said after treatment of depression, the patients felt energised and their interest levels increased, feeling energetic to carry out their suicide mission, and advised mental health personnel dealing with such patients to rope in their relatives into the suicide prevention plan.                                         

The Knowledge and Communications Officer of Basic Needs Ghana, Mr Fred Nantogmah, stated that the training was part of a broader project spanning three years, which was dubbed: "Enhancing the Mental Health of 30,000 pregnant mothers, women and girls to achieve maternal and child health in Ghana.”

Basic Needs and partners

He explained that Basic Needs and its partners had identified a gap that existed in the country's quest to ensure maternal and child health, explaining that it was regrettable that pregnant women who went for antenatal care in the various health facilities were only examined physically to the neglect of their mental health.

"This project is, therefore, to help identify the stresses that exist among pregnant women to address them at the fundamental level before it gets out of hand," Mr Nantogmah indicated.

According to him, the project was being implemented in the 74 operational districts of the Basic Needs in the three regions of the North, the Brong Ahafo and Greater Accra regions.

Other partners in the project implementation process include the Ghana Health Service, the Christian Health Association of Ghana and the Mental Health Authority of Ghana.